Introduction

IMPORTANT: The use of a Central Database is recommended as of PrizmDoc v14.4. If you are using PrizmDoc v14.1-v14.3, a database is required and PrizmDoc will not start without a valid MySQL connection string. For a complete list of database recommendations, refer to the Database Recommendations topic.

A database must be provided in order to start PAS and use viewing packages. You can see a list of supported databases in the PAS Configuration topic. After configuring PAS with the correct information, some databases, like Microsoft SQL Server, will require that a script is run in order to set up the correct tables for that database. This is normally done at PAS start up, but if you want to run the script manually, refer to the running the database scripts topic. Please note that PAS creates/updates tables at startup and requires rights to create/modify tables as well as read/write access to the database.

DEPRECATION NOTICE: The ability to manually run the script has been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

Maintaining the Database

While directly reading, linking, or otherwise using the data stored in the database by PAS is discouraged, you will still need to do regular administrative tasks, such as taking proper snapshots and backups of the data in order to prevent and mitigate data loss.

In the event of data loss that requires recovery from a backup (both for the database or the local file storage) PAS has an API to validate viewing packages and their state. For more information, refer to the Viewing Packages API.

Product and Database Updates

As the Pre-Conversion (Viewing Packages) feature is updated in future releases, the product will contain the necessary logic or scripts to transition existing tables and data to the new format, if a schema change is necessary. You can find out more information on updating PAS in the topic for setting up your database.